In addition to being
endowed with a reactive/emotional mental process and a thinking/planning/reasoning/
intellectual mental process, we humans are also blessed with a behind-the-scenes
intuitive process. Always there to help us in our attempts at creativity
and living wisely, it is a soft-spoken process. It is, in fact, so soft
spoken that most of the time its subtle promptings are way below the noise
level in contemporary minds dominated by intellectual and emotional content.

What can be done
about this? How can we gain access to those wise and helpful messages
from the intuitive process? Several writers on the subject have recommended
adopting a meditation practice to help quiet down those competing processes.
My own experience has been along these lines, and if one is willing to
put in the necessary time and effort, it works.

In Beyond Intellect,
Susan Velasquez offers us another approach  or more correctly, a
whole basketful of approaches. For many years she has led personal development
seminars. In the process, she has seen a host of different ways in which
we get in the way of that oh-so-beneficial connection with the intuitive
mind. One by one she addresses each of these unhelpful, unskillful ways
of being, and advises us on how to deal with them. The result is a book
that is likely to speak to each individual reader differently. The author
acknowledges this, in the Introduction saying:

Remember to simply
give yourself permission to be open and receptive to the information
that seems to talk specifically to you. Then listen, gently and patiently,
for your intuitive guidance, always through the basic method of cherishing,
honoring, and respecting yourself and others.

The chapter headings
give one a good sense of the book's scope and focus:

Going Beyond
Intellect to Discover Your Life Path

Defining What
You Long For

Courting Intuition

Revitalizing
Your Soul

Sparking New
Possibilities

Walking Through
Doors and Coming Home

Thriving: Living
Fully and Loving Well

For Susan Velasquez,
as for other writers on this subject, quieting the mind is part of it.
At one point she says:

To establish
a substantial, full, rich, and abundant inner core you must learn
to redeem your inner calmness and peace by seeking time to muse and
dream, to contemplate, to learn, and to uncover and discover the forgotten,
the disowned, and the disused aspects of yourself.

I'm sure that many
readers will find Beyond Intellect an insightful guide on the road
to that wiser, fuller, more peaceful way of being that the author calls
thriving.